


Unrequited

by the_moonmoth



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Future Fic, Post-Series, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:10:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1660952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn falls in love. It doesn't go well. [One year post-NFA].</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unrequited

**Author's Note:**

> I'm British and this is unbeta'd, so any errors please let me know! This is a snippet from a much longer project that may or may not ever see the light of day, but I was quite pleased with the scene, so I hope you enjoy. Feedback is love :)

There was an awkward silence in which Dawn’s bitter words hung in the space between them.

"What, no pithy wisdom from the Watcher?" she said sullenly, swiping at her face.

Margaret passed her the box of Kleenex and sighed. "I hardly expected it would be welcome," she said.

"Well I can see you're thinking it. Might as well say it." She hated when people didn't say what they were thinking. There'd been enough of that, over the years.

"All right. Here's the thing, Dawn," Margaret said. "When you're young, you need that certainty of self-respect. The world is your oyster, opportunity will always come knocking, etcetera etcetera. But as you get older, the gaze of the mind's eye swivels more and more to the past, and you realize some things are simply more important than, ah, loving yourself," she said this last with mild distaste, the verbal equivalent of prodding something slimy with the toe of your boot, "or whatever catchy phrase the talk show hosts are hawking these days. For you, child, it's true that you should not let people walk all over your heart simply because they can. But love is a gift, whatever the age, and after a certain point people may stop coming into your life to whom you can give it. And you may begin to see that loving unequally is... less about weakness or an inability to  _self-actualize_ ," again the look of displeasure at the term, "but about accepting the nature of some deep place within yourself, sacred and immutable. You are only eighteen – you have no idea if such a place even exists in your heart yet. For one such as William... I imagine it hurts more to be denied the company of that one beloved entity than to enforce a pointless separation. Sometimes, there is no moving on from such a love, so at a certain point you must simply accept."

Voice grown soft with distance, Margaret paused here for the length of several ponderous ticks of the carriage clock, and Dawn felt herself momentarily drawn out from within the circle of her own concerns to regard those of the woman opposite, sitting so straight and grey behind the big desk. The Watcher never spoke with anything less than authority, but of course that didn't mean it was undeserved. Dawn's heart stirred for someone other than herself for the first time since that morning and the disastrous conversation with Gio. And then, of course, she remembered that morning and the disastrous conversation all over again and took up the crying where she had momentarily left off.

"Which, I think, William has," Margaret murmured, doing the same. "That's why he's come here." Her eyes flicked weightily back to Dawn. "Well. Don't look so stricken, child. Hearts like his are rare, love like that hard to maintain. Most give it up after a time. You have had some interesting role-models at a young age, but take courage – you are young enough still that I would never say to you as I would say to him:  _I understand-"_ She stopped suddenly on a sharp in-drawn breath, as though realizing to what she had just admitted. "Everyone deserves to be loved in return, the joy of mutuality," she continued more firmly. "For you, however you are feeling now, this joy could be just around the corner... metaphorically speaking, of course. You must not give up on that. Give it another decade at least before you commit yourself to a life of pining." The tone was dry now, humor like old parchment. "It's not as romantic as it sounds, and though there are certainly worse things in life, it's not for the faint-hearted. William has had over a century of practice, as I understand; you're a mere mayfly in comparison." She paused, and smiled slightly, waiting for Dawn to meet her eyes. "Do you understand what I'm saying? Or are we at the thermopause in comprehension between youth and old age?"

"No, I understand," Dawn said thickly. "Get over the hot yet unworthy non-love-interest, find someone who'll love me back, don't be like the vampire."

Margaret barked a laugh, sharp and loud in the strangely muffled study. "Yes indeed, how concise. I think  _don't be like the vampire_  would have covered it all quite eloquently. Will you forgive an old woman her verbal inefficiency?"

 _Verbal inefficiency_ , Dawn thought,  _good one, remember that._ She thought about using it on Spike at some point; there would be a good opportunity soon, no doubt, the way he let her talk and talk these days. Perhaps she could tell him some of the other stuff Margaret said as well. He might like it that someone else felt the same way as him. She wasn't looking forward to fessing up what had happened with Gio, but the analytical part of her mind was already tuning up with Margaret's words, re-shaping them to make them hers. How cool would be, to see that impressed look in his eyes when she started spouting all that wood-paneled wisdom?

That was missing the point, though, wasn't it. And really, truly, she still struggled with that disconnect between fourteen-year-old Dawn's absolute admiration of everything Spike, and eighteen-year-old Dawn's understanding that tortuous, unrequited love was as undesirable as the petty theft he had once instructed her in.  _Don't follow my lead, Niblet,_  he would tell her, she could already hear it in her head,  _I want more for you than that. Oh and by the way, just give me the wanker's address and we'll get him sorted out good and proper._

Maybe that last part was wishful thinking. 

Then again, it  _was_  Spike.

She took a moment to blow her nose obnoxiously loud, eyes resting resentfully on the old woman's liver-spotted hands, clasped calmly on the green leather blotter of the desk.

"Only if I can have another cookie," she said at length.

"Ah, yes." The Watcher smiled and pushed the plate towards Dawn. "There, you see? The resilience of youth. Already there is something else with which to fulfill yourself."

"Or fulfill my sweet tooth, at least."

"Quite."

So she took her cookie and went to the ladies' and washed her face, and by the time the puffiness had gone from her eyes it was time for class again. All throughout the afternoon lecture and the subsequent hours under the dome of the library, Dawn found herself returning to the conversation, turning it over, testing her reaction to this word and that. 

She had said she was afraid that she was destined to end up like Spike.  _Destined!_ Now there was a loaded word, the type of dramatic teenage flourish she thought she was beyond.  _Embarrassing in retrospect, but perhaps that's personal growth, at least._  Thing is, she  _hadn't_  been afraid of it. She had said it, but she hadn't meant it. She had welcomed it.  _Why is that?_

Another piece of herself to share with Spike, she concluded, and recognized with creeping shame the unreasonable need to have everything in common with him, now that he was back with them. Because... well.  _Let's just say he wouldn't have come across the Atlantic in a cargo hold if it were just for me._

But she wasn't – destined or afraid. Margaret's cruel statement that she was only eighteen resonated with hollow truth. She'd just said it, hadn't meant it, not really. And she realized, slowly, over the space of two hours spent staring at the same page of the Latin translation of the Faust Grimoire, that she didn't want it, either. Love spells notwithstanding, she hadn't wanted to be the kind of self-sacrificing hero she had grown up surrounded by since she first understood the terrible cost, that night on Glory's tower.

 _Perhaps I don't really love Gio, then,_  she thought, and comforted herself with that for a further half an hour as the sun began to sink towards the pan tiles of Rome.  _Pfft, even when he got me really mad I never thought about punching him, not once. What kind of love is that?_

Back at the apartment, Buffy almost smiled at hearing this conclusion of Dawn's, that faint, inward-facing expression that meant her sister was thinking of Spike. It was the thinking-of-Spike-in-a-nostalgic-if-not-quite-happy-way expression, though, so that almost made up for it.

"Guess you won't be wanting this, then?" Buffy said, taking the previously unseen pint of Haagen-Dasz back to the freezer. 

"What flavor is it?" Dawn asked quickly.

"Dulce de leche. But you're a strong independent woman whose heart is clearly not easily touched, so I'll just-"

"Nah-ah, gimme," Dawn said leaping up, wrestling Buffy briefly before coming away triumphant. She stared at the ice cream carton for a moment, then started sobbing.

"Spoon?" Buffy said wryly, reaching for the cutlery drawer before leading her over to their couch. "Want me to stroke your hair?"

"Uh huh."

Buffy didn't cry much, not at other people's pain. The strong, silent support thing was more her style. But she had cried that first night, when Dawn had come stumbling in close to daybreak with the miracle of Spike lurking uncertainly at her heels. 

"Remember, in Germany, how you said you'd rather hurt than feel numb again?" Dawn said softly after some time.

"Yeah," Buffy replied, equally soft, that now-familiar, hushed way of conversation they had taught themselves on their trek through Europe. A way of speaking fit for a library or church, or two sisters who had long ago lost the habit of it. Respectful, a little furtive.

"Still true?"

"Still true."

"Does it still hurt?"

Stupid question. They weren't mourning Spike anymore because he wasn't dead. Was here in Rome. Would be _here_ here soon for patrol, clompy boots and swirly coat and all.

Perhaps that wasn't quite what she'd been asking.

Somehow, Buffy seemed to know that, though.

"Less and less, Dawnie. Every day."

"I want to be loved," Dawn whispered.

"You are. You will be."

She was drifting now, on the down-slope of the sugar high and lulled by the simple childish comfort of her sister's fingers sifting through her hair.

"I want Gio to love me." 

"I'm sorry, sweetheart."

_Sweetheart, that's what Spike calls her sometimes, when they're soft together._

"I want you to love Spike."

The hands stilled, but Dawn barely noticed.

"He must feel like this all the time..." she murmured, "It's so awful... don't want him to end up like Margaret."

"End up like... what do you mean?"

But Dawn was too heavy to answer, and slept there on the couch until cool fingers at her temple woke her, returning from patrol. She let Spike carry her like a rag-doll back to her bed, as he sometimes used to that summer when Buffy was gone.

"Am I a mayfly to you?" she mumbled into his shoulder, safely surrounded by the scent of leather, tobacco, rain.

"You're the bright center of my sorry universe," he replied, setting her down gently.

Ah, that was okay then, and maybe he  _had_  come across the Atlantic in a cargo hold just for her, just a little bit.

"Do you love me?"

"Always."

She tried to crack open her gummy eyes. Failed. Reached heavily for his face instead.

"Love you, too." Against her hand, she felt him smile. "Should get to hear it back sometimes." The smile faded.

"You say it all the time, bit. Kinda tiresome."

"Shut up, Spike."

Sleepily she shoved his head away and used the leverage to roll over, smiling as the weight of the comforter settled over her shoulders.

She didn't hear him leave so perhaps he stayed. She pictured him crouched by her bedside like a gargoyle, a black-winged guardian angel, until she slid back into sleep.

 


End file.
